


Buyer's Remorse

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Bloodline - Claudia Gray
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consequences, Guilt, M/M, Politics, Pre-Relationship, Regret, The First Order Wins (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Ransolm meets a fellow collector of Imperial memorabilia, and comes to terms with the hardest choice he ever made.
Relationships: Ransolm Casterfo/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Buyer's Remorse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perlaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/gifts).



The upside of the surprise is that Ransolm doesn’t get much time to marinate in dread. The First Order flagship has been parked over the galactic capital Arkanis for scant hours, the official senatorial welcome has been dispensed with, and there’s no reason to anticipate being wanted for anything between now and the lavish dinner banquet Carise has insisted on staging this evening in honour of their visiting overlords. Ransolm is immersed in routine work when a protocol droid – contriving, despite its lack of lungs, to appear breathless – bustles through his office door and announces that Kylo Ren intends to do him the honour of a personal visit.

What feels like heartbeats later, the honour eventuates. Kylo Ren is in Ransolm’s office.

‘Senator Casterfo,’ says the droid. ‘Allow me to introduce–’

‘Out, droid. I’ll introduce myself.’

A human voice. Young, calm, infused with no particular evil. Ransolm has never seen a protocol droid look relieved to be dismissed before. That should warn him of something. The rumours, too, should give him pause: everyone says a new Darth Vader stands by their Supreme Leader’s side, masked and cowled and dripping death. But Ransolm has met the real Vader. He has felt his blood turn to ice in his veins from the blast-chill of pure hatred emanating from the last great Sith Lord. Ren’s presence is a mild cooling sensation, like standing beside a kitchen fridge left open just a crack. The mask wouldn’t help. Maybe that’s why, since Ransolm last glimpsed him at the official welcome, he has chosen to remove it.

Ren in the flesh is younger and much paler than Ransolm, a quirk of his genes magnified by years inside the hermetically sealed environment of a deep space warship. Stark melanin pools in his eyes, moles and jaw-length hair. He’s the second most dangerous man in the galaxy. The Supreme Leader’s right hand, the foremost human weapon of the new regime, the slaughterer of more people than most will meet in their entire lives. He looks like someone Ransolm would make lingering eye contact with before inviting out for some fresh air at one of high society’s boozier galas.

He looks like someone who would take Ransolm up on it.

As the protocol droid shuffles off, Ren sweeps past Ransolm and approaches a plinth in the corner where one of his newest acquisitions sits on display.  _ Newest _ is a relative term. It’s been several years now since Ransolm lost his passion for Imperial memorabilia. But in the new political climate, packing away his collection would be a dangerously subversive act. He regrets the dark trooper helmet more than most of his purchases. Day after day, it watches over him from up there on its plinth, slit eyes narrowed in contempt. It knows what he has done. It hates him for it almost as much as Ransolm hates himself.

‘This is a Phase III prototype,’ says Ren. ‘Less than a few hundred were ever manufactured. They told me you were an avid collector.’ He glances back at Ransolm. ‘You must have paid an unthinkable amount for this.’

Whoever else he may be, Ren is not a politician. Rude attention to Ransolm’s discretionary spending habits aside, his face betrays more than he intends it to with his efforts to appear knowledgeable and nonchalant. He wants something. Very badly. He doesn’t know how to lead into it, and he hasn’t yet revealed enough of his true intentions that Ransolm can manage the segue for him. Perhaps if he’d never met Vader, Ransolm would be terrified to find himself at the mercy of the new regime’s attack dog in chief with no script for the interaction and no known agenda to play to. But he has met Vader. With his pulse only mildly elevated, he plays along. ‘I was lucky enough to get a good deal on it. A friend of mine had a client who needed to liquidate his collection quickly, and was very receptive to negotiation. Several of my favourite pieces came from that auction.’ He steps sideways, drawing Ren’s eye without shrinking the distance between them. ‘This,’ he says, gesturing to an Imperial banner hanging on the wall, ‘used to hang in the dining hall of Emperor Palpatine’s palace. I believe the silk was sourced from–’

‘You have nothing of Vader’s,’ Ren blurts.

Not his main point yet, Ransolm doesn’t think. But closer. ‘You flatter me,’ he says, ‘by your estimation of my wealth. Hundreds of helmets were manufactured for each dark trooper prototype. Thousands of banners hung in Emperor Palpatine’s palace. But Lord Vader’s treasures are rarer than rare. You couldn’t buy a panel from his shuttle for less than the entire GDP of a small developed planet.’

Ren nods, hardly seeming to hear. His eyes drift to a shelf near the plinth, where Ransolm keeps his modest assortment of commemorative battle pins. ‘I have Vader’s helmet.’

Still desperately trying to sound nonchalant. ‘You’re a collector yourself, then,’ says Ransolm, widening his eyes in a well-practiced look of surprised admiration. He thinks he knows now where this is leading. For the first time since Ren’s abrupt entrance, a knot of fear forms in his gut. Not fear of Ren. Ren isn’t the only person in this room who knows how it feels to destroy another person’s life.

The reckoning itself is what frightens Ransolm. He’s been trying for so long to suppress every thought of it. To put the past in the past and convince himself of the lie that every citizen of the New Empire must believe wholeheartedly if they want to survive.

Ren’s next words come out in a breathless rush. ‘You know the truth,’ he says. ‘Don’t say it aloud. But you know about  _ her. _ About my family. You know who I am.’

The knot tightens. ‘Yes,’ says Ransolm, mouth dry. ‘Despite our having foregone the pleasantries just now, I know who you are.’

Years ago, before Ransolm’s own political party tied strings around the Senate and handed them to the First Order’s puppeteers, he used to work with Leia Organa. On the day he decided to expose her deepest secret to the galaxy, it never crossed his mind how the impact would flow on from her to the rest of her family. But Leia Organa had a son. A son just as descended from Darth Vader as she was, whose life was just as prone to be destroyed by the revelation.

The man who used to be Ben Solo has done well for himself, when compared against his mother’s fate.

‘I’ve wanted to meet you for a very long time,’ says Ren. This, at last, is the reason he came. His imperfectly controlled expressions have broken free completely, and his face is awash in quavering sincerity. ‘It wasn’t just the Senate she lied to. I spent years not knowing how the dark side got inside me, believing that my true nature made me a traitor to my family. But then you exposed the truth. I’m the only one who  _ didn’t  _ betray our bloodline. You showed me who I really was – who I was meant to become. I owe you a debt for that.’

If Ren were Vader, the chill of his presence would freeze the heat of Ransolm’s shame. He is not the Supreme Leader. He is not Kylo Ren. He is not even First Senator, after Carise so skilfully maneuvered the presumptive title out from under him. But he, Ransolm Casterfo, is as responsible as any of them for the galaxy’s current fate. A better person once tried to warn him of the dangers of lionising the Empire. He destroyed her for it. He’ll carry that guilt for the rest of his life. Carry it in utter secret, because thanks to him, sympathy for the enemy is now a capital offence along with criticism of the regime and all other forms of political heterodoxy.

But Ren is not Vader. And instead of the damnation Ransolm deserves, he has Ren’s gratitude.

‘I…’ For the first time in their encounter – for one of the first times in his life – Ransolm feels tongue-tied. ‘I did my duty.’ It’s the lie he tells himself every day. ‘No one deserves thanks for merely doing their duty.’

‘I see the conflict in you.’ Dark eyes bore into Ransolm’s, still bleeding emotion freely, but with no sign of weakening for the blood loss. Ransolm may have been wrong to underestimate Ren based on political skill. He’s no honeyed speaker, but he’s something else. Something Ransolm has met only twice in his life before – in Vader, and later (though it manifested differently) in a woman he’s no longer allowed to name. ‘We pay a high price for doing our duty. You don’t need to conceal it from me. I know how hard it is to choose the right side when everything you’ve ever been taught is telling you it’s wrong. I know not a day goes by that you don’t grieve for what you’ve done. But you did it. That’s what matters. And you don’t have to carry the weight of it alone.’

Ren steps closer. Goosebumps rise on Ransolm’s skin, and the heat of guilt mixes with the chill of fear and the warm, sparkling twist of a feeling he never felt for Vader or Organa. This new layer of complexity belongs only to Ren and his tousled dark hair and his honest, yearning eyes. ‘I have Vader’s helmet,’ Ren repeats. ‘And a few other personal effects of his. As a fellow collector, I know you can be trusted to appreciate their value as so few others do. I’d like to offer you a tour. Any time you like. My flagship will be in this sector for the rest of the week.’ He holds out his hand. With no sense of being in command of his body, Ransolm feels his own extend to meet it. Soft glove leather touches his bare skin, warm from its wearer’s body heat. From palm to palm, Ren transfers a small clearance medallion. ‘This will get you into my quarters,’ he explains, voice as soft as the whisper Ransolm might have breathed into his ear if they were nothing more than two young aristocrats cavorting at a gala. 

There’s a promise in his eyes of more than just a breath of fresh air. More than just a dead man’s mask. Ransolm doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s too shaken in the grip of conflicting emotions.

But for better or worse, this is his life now. He chose it freely, with as much agency as Snoke, Ren and Carise chose their own roles. Ren’s offer is generous and tempting and abhorrent all at once. It offers him a new truth to replace the lies he’s never till now been able to believe – that one good thing, at least, came out of the devastating choice he made. That lifelong guilt and remorse aren’t his only options. That someone other than a Centrist politician, for reasons other than their own career advancement, genuinely believes he did the right thing.

Ransolm doesn’t know if he should take the offer. But he already knows he will.


End file.
